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an hardware/software combo is always better than one alone...and you have the benefit of being able to hook up extra boxes behind the firewall without paying for an extra ip...most if not all do DHCP and NAT

I used to be With IT. But then they changed what IT was. Now what I'm with isn't IT, and what's IT seems scary and weird." - Abe Simpson

Zigar has an excellent solution, but you mentioned you don't want to spend extra bucks, right?

well, do you have some old box in the corner collecting dust?
like a 80486 or Pentium I, or even a "fast" 80386?

Use this box as a gateway to the net.

What do you need, to do that?

first: the spare box (a 80486 or something like mentioned above)
second: 2 network cards (or if your modem has USB connection, 1 Network card and USB)
third: an OS (Windows or Linux)
fourth: software that does the firewall and router/NAT for you
this software can be (for windows): sygate home network, Ositis winproxy, winproxy, rideaway, proxy+, ... there are many search the one that suits your needs...
but remember: if you choose windows you have to keep in mind that the software nor the OS is free and not even stable or good working and that you probably have to use a Pentium box for minimum system requirements.

Better choice is Linux, you can configure the Linux box to act as router on your own...check the IPchains and NET3 howto's or tutorials on this site and on www.linux.org or you can use some prebuild linux config that does everything for you... you can get a linux distro that does the task on a single floppy (1.4 Mb) while windows + antivirus + firewall and router software would need more than 500 MB... there are many linux firewall distro's available on the net, check out www.linux.org . There's one that I can recommend for use with cable or DSL connections trough ethernet, called BBIagent and available from www.BBIagent.net or www.BBIagent.com , the linux distro's almost all work fine with connections based on ethernet (like PPPoE), if you use a modem that connects through USB, you will need to have a box with USB support (offcourse) and search for software and OS that does support connections through USB.

They have some simple pre-configured nice lil' firewall NAT, webcache. It's very simple to install and use. Plus they sell dynamic DNS, which is nice for those broadband people on DHCP. It's free.

Mankind have a great aversion to intellectual labor; but even supposing knowledge to be easily attainable, more people would be content to be ignorant than would take even a little trouble to acquire it.
- Samuel Johnson